I am using Cognos Framework Manager 8.4. While editing a package definition, on certain ones, I see the options:

Select components and children

Unselect components and children

when I right-click on a namespace/model/query subject within the package definition.

While on certain other package definitions I see the options:

Select components and children

Hide components and children

Unselect components and children

Would you have some insight as to what drives the different options (select, unselect, hide) in different package definitions. One thing that I have noticed is the models in the packages are based on different datasources. Could that be the reason?

Bit of a guess, but a typical FM model consists of different layers. In the package you will want to show just the presentation layer, but objects in it may refer to the modelling layer. Then it would be a matter of including (but hiding) the modelling layer. If you unselect this layer the package will still work though (Cognos is smart enough to fix this), but you will keep getting warnings when publishing.A single layer model can not have deeper references, making hiding superfluous. Again, this is an educated guess..

Thanks blom0344. You logic makes real good sense. However, when I went back and checked the packages, they both include a database layer and presentation layer. So I am still pondering what the reason could be.

There are things you can do within the model which will prevent metadata caching at runtime. Examples include hard-coding specific SQL queries in data source query subjects (ie modifying 'Select * from Table' to be something else), adding calculations to data source query subjects etc etc. If these issues are not addressed, the result is increased metadata callbacks from C8 to the data source(s) to determine metadata structure. A nifty way to prevent this would be that for each data source query subject you need to modify in the model, add in a second version of the data source query subject to the model but leave it unmodified. When defining your packages later on, include the relevant unmodified query subjects in the package definition, but mark them as hidden. In this way, metadata for all relevant tables can be cached by the C8 server, and metadata callbacks can be minimized.

If you've not nodded off by now after my incoherent rambling- well done!!!